1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed generally to a system and method for improving workflow in reading and analyzing medical image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are several tools common in radiology image viewing stations that aid the radiologist in reviewing studies. Some of these include the use of hanging protocols, navigating through images, zooming and panning images, and applying parametric maps or overlays on the images. While these tools are common and do provide benefit to the users, there are several disadvantages or shortcomings to the typical implementation of these features.
Workflow. There are many radiology viewing stations that provide various tools for analyzing, measuring, and assessing findings and studies. However, most often the user is presented with a collection of tools to use, but it is up to the user to decide which tools to use when. In addition, the user is left hunting around for the various measurements, assessments, and images for each of the findings in order to summarize the study, snapshot key images, and dictate or create the report.
Hanging Protocols. It is common in radiology image viewing stations to support hanging protocols, where the user saves various layouts (including the location and size of image windows, and the series to view in each window). When reviewing studies, the user may choose the desired layout to view, or quickly cycle between the next or previous layout. However, when working through certain tasks or interactions in the software inherent in the workflow of reviewing a study, changing to a related hanging protocol is an extra action the user has to invoke.
Another issue with hanging protocols is based on reading studies where the images are acquired or split into separate unilateral series (e.g., separate left and right images). Some hanging protocols may show the left and right images side-by-side, and scroll through them together. However, some desired layouts are typically only showing one side or the other. This results in a multitude of saved layouts (one for each side), and extra actions for switching between them while viewing the study.
3D Navigation. In prior versions of CADstream, the user could click on any image and the other displayed images would automatically navigate to sync up to the same spatial location (based on the spatial positions defined for the MR images). The navigation would update the view of images from any orientation, thus it is a 3D navigation. However, often the user may then scroll through images, see another area of interest, and perhaps want to switch to display an image in an orthogonal plane (such as from a reformatted series), or the user may change the hanging protocol wanting to view that finding in other series. Typically, the user then has to navigate to the position again in the new layout, wasting time.
Zoom and Pan. Typically, images are zoomed based on the image to display pixel ratio. For example, a 1× zoom is where each pixel of the image data is shown directly as a single pixel on the display. It is also common to be able to link images in the same plane so they zoom and pan together. Problems arise when you have images of different spatial resolution (millimeters/pixel differs), or different field of view (image spatial size may vary). It can be difficult to get them to zoom such that the feature of interest is displayed as the same size in all images, yet it is confusing when they are displayed differently. There is also time wasted by the user panning the images so the area of interest is in the viewable area as images are zoomed.
The zoom and pan properties are typically saved in the hanging protocols as well. However, when the zoom is tied to the display pixel size, the actual area of the image shown will vary when switching between different display stations that have different screen resolutions (display pixel sizes). Rather, the user is typically most interested in zooming to show a desired field of view within the window. Thus, the saved zoom in the layouts are not ideal in all situations.
Parametric Maps. When reviewing MR studies for cancer, often the user evaluates the kinetic behavior of dynamic or temporal series. In addition, users evaluate the image characteristics in other non-temporal series. Thus, the user often needs to correlate the kinetic behavior to a specific location on these other series. It is common to display a parametric map or overlay computed to represent the kinetic behavior on temporal images. However, the non-temporal series are often acquired in a different field of view, slice thickness, and/or orientation, making it difficult to quickly identify the kinetic behavior at the same location as an area of interest on the non-temporal series.